Faculty and Staff

Department of Theatre and Dance

Dr. Cecilia Josephine Aragón

B.S. McMurry University M.F.A. University of New Mexico Ph.D. Arizona State University

Cecilia Josephine Aragón has a joint appointment between Theatre and Dance and Latina/o Studies. She serves as the coordinator for Theatre Education and Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA). Aragón serves as past-president of Women and Theatre Program of ATHE. She was recently appointed to the National Endowment for the Arts national review grants board for Theatre and Musical Theatre.

Aragón’s teaching areas include Introduction to Theatre, Beginning Acting, World Drama, Multicultural Theatre, Dramatic Literature and Criticism, Performance Theory, Theatre for Social Change, and Community Engagement Theatre. In addition, she teaches TYA, Children's Theatre, Reader's Theatre, Creative Drama in the Classroom, and Teaching Theatre Artists. Aragón also works with the University of Hawaii-Manoa in a student program initiative—taking theatre students to Hawaii each year to learn about intercultural performances and cultural diplomacy.

Aragón has significant experience as an actor and director. Her directing credits include, but are not limited to: Where the Wild Things Are, Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, Alicia in Wonder Tierra, Bocón, Beauty and the Beast, Jungalbook, Wiley and the Hairy Man, and the newly devised plays, Evo-Cete: The Big Blue Journey, The Prince of Whales: Evolution of Whales in Four Stages, Naked Words Hip-Hop Revolution—A Youth Festival, and Wyoming Ice Age: Survival of the Mammoth, Vagina Monologues, and Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays. Her directing credits also include Rudolfo Anaya’s plays, Billy the Kid, Matachines, Ay, Compadre!, Angie, Farolitos of Christmas, and The Season of La Llorona.

Aragón’s scholarly articles and research areas include Latina/o Theatre, Indo-Hispano Folk Drama, Indigenous Performances, and Community-engaged Theatre. Aragón has published three articles on Anaya’s plays titled, “Billy the Kid/El Bilito” (ABC-CLIO, 2012); “Los Corridos de Billy the Kid-El Querido, 'El Bilito': Contemporary Ballads and Songs About Billy the Kid From New Mexicans—Rudolfo Anaya and Simón Álvarez” (Camino Real—Estudios de las Hispanidades Norteamericanas, 2011); and “Politics and Performance: Repression and Resistance in Lee Blessing's Billy the Kid and Rudolfo Anaya's Billy the Kid” (The Western States Theatre Review, 2011). Aragón was invited to collaborate and serve as co-editor of the book, Rudolfo Anaya: Billy the Kid and Other Plays, (Chicana and Chicano Visions of the Americas Series; University of Oklahoma Press, 2011).